| La Dame | |
| |
| General Information | |
| Location Information | |
| Location: | Montréal, Quebec, Canada |
| Societal Information | |
| Factions: | Lots of raiders, slavers, and guns-for-hire |
| Notable Events: | the Cage Brawls |
The slavers and raiders of La Dame represent one of the greatest threats of the people of Montréal. If the toxic gas that covers parts of the city combined with the hordes of mutants that roam the streets wasn't bad enough, the slavers have made it well-nigh impossible to live in Montréal. When circumstances don't allow them to rampage and pillage; the inhabitants of La Dame sate their bloodthirst by watching the gladiatorial cage fights going on in the church's central nave.
History
Pre-War
In 1657, the Roman Catholic Sulpician Order arrived in Ville-Marie, now known as Montreal; six years later the seigneury of the island was vested in them. They ruled until 1840. The parish they founded was dedicated to the Holy Name of Mary, and the parish church of Notre-Dame was built on the site in 1672. The church served as the first cathedral of the Diocese of Montreal from 1821 to 1822.
By 1824 the congregation had completely outgrown the church, and James O'Donnell, an Irish-American Protestant from New York, was commissioned to design the new building. O'Donnell was a proponent of the Gothic Revival architectural movement, and designed the church as such. He is the only person buried in the church's crypt. O'Donnell converted to Catholicism on his deathbed perhaps due to the realization that he might not be allowed to be buried in his church.
Notre-Dame Church was raised to the status of basilica by Pope John Paul II during a visit to the city in 1982. The Notre-Dame Roman Catholic Church was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1989. The Gothic Revival style Basilica was a Montréal landmark.
The War
The Basilica was used as a refuge of sorts by those who were unlikely to reach a public shelter in time, and those who were simply caught out in the street and became too desperate to run home and hide. Any efforts by local authorities to keep the peace were in vain, and the terrified Montréalers caused irreparable damage to paintings and statues alike.
The building withstood the devastation fairly well, but it provided those within with barely no protection against radiation and the immense heat that terrorized the city immediately afterwards.
Post-War
In the hours and days following the Great War, most of those who had survived within the Basilica died from dehydration and radiation sickness or grew terribly afraid of this new, horrifying world and committed suicide. The few surviving men and women chose to stay inside, and their isolation soon turned them depressed and crazed. Years of inbreeding and the incapableness to improve their situation or defense against radiation only further accelerated the mental decline of the dwellers. {C}
Most of the surrounding area is now an unrecognizable wasteland with unbreathable air.
The decades after the War were exceedingly tough. As battles for territory and supplies ravaged the inside and outside of the Basilica, the first pockets of gas started to rise from the city's underground, killing dozens of people before the dwellers retreated and further barricaded their position in the church. Along with these barricades, a witty scavenger who had stumbled across some old, military air filters dragged them back and installed them on La Dame's upper floors.
With the population declining and with a steadily shrinking supply of food and water, the upper echelons of La Dame's rickety government sent out a heavily armed and well-equipped unit (with gasmasks, a significant amount of RadAway and some old National Guard weapons) of scavengers to look for supplies and survivors to enlarge La Dame's gene pool a bit.
The unit came back, but, however, with far more outsiders then the dwellers could have ever imagined. They treated these men and women as best as they could at first, but eventually became nothing more than slaves. The dwellers used these slaves for their production of electricity, clean water and other vital supplies, they regarded them as part of the machinery, as nothing. As the numbers of slaves grew, some of the slavers found it amusing to watch them kill each other for scraps of food, and these men created the Cage Brawls.
And ever since 2260, slaves have killed and died in the Cage for the amusement of the depraved and those who wallow in the filth of La Dame.
Economy
Some of the raiders are quite extravagant
There is very little trade in La Dame. Every room in the church is crowded with people or is used to store guns and ammunition. This makes it almost impossible to find enough free space to display your wares without everyone stepping on it or stealing it. The slavers mostly purchase food and water, and the raiders and bounty hunters keep a healthy supply of ammunition and weapons.
Every once in a while, one of the big air filters that keep the toxic gas out of the church breaks down, and has to be fixed. This is when La Dame desperately sends out people to search for spare parts and tools to fix the filters, and these parts have quite some value on the local market. Recently, these replacement filters are becoming scarce, and this could become a major problem in the nearby future if no one shows up with a solution.
Government
Laws are strange things in La Dame, and if there are any, there is certainly nobody willing enough to enforce them. Chiefs and warlords have claimed the throne only to rule for a day and then be killed and forgotten, replaced by someone who is just a bit smarter, or a bit luckier. And even then, these warlords have never really been taken seriously. There is one common law though: Don't mess with the air filters. A small group of slavers dedicate themselves with the protection of these all-important machines, as their destruction would mean death to all who live in La Dame.
Culture
The warder keeps an eye on the slaves before they get to fight on the big stage.
The biggest part of the population is atheist, and the few who aren't favor obscure gods and perform even darker rituals. Especially the raiders, who spend most of their time outside where even their gas masks provide incomplete protection against the toxic fumes that come from beneath Montréal, perform dark and mystic rituals which they believe gives them strength. The slavers tend to be quiet and stoic, while their slaves beg them for mercy and pray to their non-existing gods for salvation. The languages spoken in La Dame vary from simple English to a strange mixture of French and English that most slavers tend to speak.
A lot of people gather every day in the middle of the Basilica, around the rusty cage where the famous Cage Brawls take place. The participants have to fight each other to the death, and everything is allowed to achieve victory, although the spectators will be more inclined to set a victorious slave free (if only for a while) after some thrilling hand-to-hand combat. The more successful slaves may choose to return, to gather fame and make a reputation for themselves, but this happens only rarely. The Cage is a place with an indescribable air of fear, where the stench of blood and guts can prove to be too much for even the most battle-hardened of slaves.
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